


late nights in CA

by neville



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Journalism, Background Character Death, Background Relationships, College, Journalism, M/M, Murder, Sad, Serial Killers, Students, Tragedy, Trans Bruce Banner, Trans Bucky Barnes, Unsolved Murders, a sad time all round, mentions of transphobia, written in the style of an article
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 00:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20106451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neville/pseuds/neville
Summary: Investigative journalist Bruce Banner and his husband, crime reporter Clint Barton, arrive in California to investigate the unsolved deaths of three college students.☾Over the course of six months, three students have been murdered across universities in California. With seemingly minimal investigation from the police, there are no clues, simply tragedy: but what toll have these deaths left on those living beyond the tragedy?





	late nights in CA

**Author's Note:**

> heads up: this is written in the style of a journalistic article, though bruce is pretty liberal with mentions of himself, and also i'm not a journalist so sorry for any slip-ups. also, i'm sorry for who dies in this, but ... had to make it tragic
> 
> this piece is inspired by [these](https://www.buzzfeed.com/beckybarnicoat/true-crime-long-reads-thatll-give-you-sleepless-nights?bfsource=relatedauto) articles, so definitely check them out if you've got time! i was also very much inspired to watch this after watching the film spotlight, which is a phenomenal film with an incredible cast including, of course, mark ruffalo
> 
> also putting in here a **cw for transphobia**
> 
> last but not least ... im so sorry for this fic slkdfaksdfj

My partner Clint and I touch down in California at 5pm; immediately, we set off to find a diner. There’s one just a short cab ride away from the airport: on the end of the counter is a fishbowl, and the waitress behind the counter tells me that her goldfish is called Newt. “I always wanted a newt,” the waitress says when I ask about the name, and she laughs. 

The people at the counter know about Darcy Lewis. Her body was found just a few blocks from this diner, and the waitress says that she knew her. “She used to come here,” she says. “She was full of life. It’s really tragic.” She tells Clint and I that the police are being unresponsive and she doesn’t know if they even have a suspect. This fits with what we know: both of us have been investigating this case since news first trickled into our office in New York, and the police have been staunchly refusing to comment ever since. The most we’ve gotten from the police here is confirmation of the murder, the victim’s name, and the cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head. We know that there’s been an arrest, but we don’t know who. 

The diners have a lot to say about the state of the Berkeley police; most of it isn’t pretty. 

But I understand that anger, and it’s the reason that Clint and I are here. 

Two months ago, a young woman called Darcy Lewis left this diner. It was ten at night, and the streets were quiet. It was February, and the winter cold permeated. Her new boyfriend Ian Boothby was waiting for her at work, and the next day Lewis was going to begin working as an intern for The University of California, Berkeley astrophysicist Dr. Jane Foster. Just as her life seemed to be taking off, it was cruelly cut short: at quarter past ten, on her walk home, Lewis was ambushed and bludgeoned to death. Her disappearance was reported at one am by Boothby, and after the release of her name, cause of death, and other basic details by the police, her family and friends have been left in the dark. 

California state has seen its fair share of death: it’s seen murders committed at the hands of the Golden State Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, the Zodiac killer, and the Grim Sleeper, among others. This does not mean California is comfortable with death or its reputation as home to some of the States’ most famous serial killers. Residents here are increasingly uncomfortable in the presence of murder: the waitress tells me that she feels uncomfortable walking home now and that she’s been having friends pick her up since the incident. “It doesn’t feel safe,” she says. 

The murder of a student in Berkeley is a tragedy: however, it isn’t worth the dispatch of two reporters from New York. What piqued my interest was the fact that this was not the first murder of a student I had heard of from California. National news had rallied around the murder of trans Stanford student James Buchanan Barnes six months prior; the distress of the LGBT+ community had been palpable, and his name had run on marquees for days. The police had promised answers. The arrest of his boyfriend Steven Rogers had been anything but that. The case became a furore of student and LGBT+ outrage against the police, and there are still no suspects. Steve Rogers has been cleared. 

When my good friend Dr. Jane Foster had phoned me to tell me about the murder of Lewis, I immediately thought back to this case. It seemed clear to me that they were connected. Barnes had been also been bludgeoned to death during the evening; he had been on his way back to his dormitory after a late-night visit to the grocery store. The police had made no statement on whether or not the crimes were connected and if they thought this was the work of a burgeoning serial killer. In my capacity as a journalist, I contacted them, and they chose to make no comment except to tell me that they were committed to solving both cases. 

My partner Clint, who works for the Daily Bugle’s crime division, reported on the similarities between cases. For a while, things were dry; that was, until a week ago, and the murder of physics student Hope van Dyne. 

I ask the waitress if she’s familiar with these other cases. “Sure,” she says. “I’m a student. We’re all worried and looking out for each other, because we don’t want this to happen to anyone else. It’s terrible. The police keep pretending they’re not linked, but – that’s the murder of three students in the space of six months, right?” 

Clint tells me that he’s never seen police negligence like this before, and he’s been working for the Daily Bugle for twenty years. He still writes all of his notes in journalistic shorthand; his folders all have trademark coffee stains. He has the trademark frown of a man who’s seen a lot in life – before moving into the world of crime journalism, he had served a short stint as an officer himself. This is why he’s joining me in California. He knows what he’s talking about. 

I tell the waitress that this is what I’m writing my article on. She wishes me good luck, because she says I’ll need it, and refills my coffee for free. Clint says he doesn’t know where this visit is going to take us, but for me, one thing is clear: I want to speak to the people who knew the victims. I want to know about the victims, to remember them as people and not static photographs from news reports. I want to know about the people who are being let down. 

  
  


I was born in 1979 in Wisconsin and raised thereafter in Virginia. At the age of eighteen, the same year that I started my physics degree at MIT, I realised that I was transgender. 

When I was twenty, I was arrested as part of an on-campus peaceful protest against the actions of a university official. When the police came to understand that I was transgender, they belittled and berated me and I was held in custody for hours longer than others arrested. I reached out to the local newspaper, where a forward-thinking intern named Clint Barton proposed writing an article about the discrimination I had experienced. He was tasked to write it himself, something he did after meeting with me extensively in coffee shops on campus to clarify his language. Most people did not go to this effort to ensure they understood me, but several days later, a perfectly written article appeared in the newspaper about trans discrimination by the local PD. It made a bigger stir than either of us expected. 

Clint and I have been together ever since. 

Transgender experiences are routinely ignored and belittled by police departments across the state – it doesn’t matter what sort of crime you’re reporting. To try and report hate crimes is often laughable. Murders of trans women are still more common than they ought to be, and often go passed by despite the total number of deaths reaching double digits each year. Trans experiences are not often easy in the U.S., and the rise of the community in anger at the death of James Barnes is a testament to the collective frustration of LGBT+ individuals across America. 

Murders of women are still often treated with layers of unchecked misogyny: the blame is laid on the victim for being out so late at night on her own, or for the way she was dressed. Women cannot have and should not need personal guards, yet the blame is often shifted to her for not having one. The murder of a woman is also so often attributed to a boyfriend or ex; and while often correct, the refusal to examine other suspects on this basis is problematic. 

Three murders in California state of students bludgeoned to death in the past six months: two female and one trans, and the police clam up when asked legitimate questions about the investigation. Clint tells me that these murders will likely remain unsolved unless the killer slips up soon due to police negligence, and this is why I choose to speak to the friends and families of the victims. 

Who is this negligence affecting? 

  
  


Steve Rogers happens to be visiting friends in Berkeley and offers to meet me at a coffee shop in town. He is strongly built, handsome, and should be the confident jock we all remember from high school: but Steve Rogers is no stereotype, and he is marred by the loss of his best friend and boyfriend. Six months on and when he speaks he barely restrains tears. 

He and James grew up together in Brooklyn. They lived on the same street and spent most of their childhood getting into trouble: Steve refused to let anything he perceived as wrong go unchallenged, and spent most of his childhood with a broken nose. James was more choice when picking his battles, the more sensible of the two, but they were both mischievous little boys and beloved by their family and neighbours. The word  _ idiots _ is often used about them, and always fondly. Steve recalls something they used to say to each other:

_ “Don’t do anything stupid.” “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” _

High school was a pivotal moment for both of them: Steve buffed up and became the man sitting in front of me today, and James came out publicly as trans, using his new name and pronouns. According to Steve, acceptance was almost universal; it was often faculty rather than students who made difficult the change. James, who Steve fondly calls  _ Bucky _ , rose to their challenge and let nothing slide. The pride in Steve’s eyes glows as he talks. 

They began dating – childhood sweethearts, everyone said – just before college. Luckily, both had places at Stanford. They were both just over a year into their degrees when James’s life was cut short in the unprecedented attack. On his way home from Wal-Mart, James had been ambushed in the street, partially strangled as he fought back, and then bludgeoned to death. His body was discovered several minutes later by a neighbour who overheard the noise; however, by then, the killer was gone.

Steve tells me that he can’t think of anybody who would want to hurt Bucky. This is corroborated by several other friends that I speak to. Nobody can understand why it was James Buchanan Barnes; by all means, he had been friendly, popular, and unobtrusive. 

Steve knows about the other murders; he brings them up of his own volition. “The police aren’t doing anything,” he says. “There are peoples’  _ lives _ at stake.” 

When I ask him if he’s worried – either for himself or other students – he nods. “You think it won’t happen to you,” he says, “but it happened to the guy who meant the most in the world to me. It could happen to anyone. That’s what’s so scary. It could’ve been me.” He looks out the window of the shop; I suspect he’s trying not to let me notice that he’s crying. “It  _ should’ve _ been me.” 

One of the baristas asks me if I’m investigating the case. It’s almost disappointing that I have to tell him that I’m a journalist. 

“I’m not surprised,” he says. “The police aren’t doing anything. I think there’s a cover up. Some kind of hush hush going on.” 

Steve asks to see where Darcy Lewis was killed. He stands in the middle of the street for a long time, only moving to dodge cars. “They must’ve been so scared,” he says. “I can’t sleep thinking about it. Bucky on his own in the dark on his way home, and then…” 

  
  


“You’re interested in this story because it could’ve been you,” Clint says in our hotel room. It isn’t a fancy one. The view from the window is the parking lot, and the duvet cover gives the impression of having remained the same since the late seventies. The hotel’s saving grace is an oddly elegant painting of a cat hung above our bed, and the kettle in our room. He says it as a statement, not a question, because he doesn’t need my answer to know that he’s right. 

Years ago, I was that student, making late night trips to Wal-Mart: for alcohol, groceries, or cupcake baking kits. Place me back in Massachusetts and I’m sure I would still know the way. The case captured the attention of students across America precisely because the walk to the grocery store is something that we all understand; the trip is one we’ve all made. To have the vulnerability of that trip exposed is something terrifying. 

In a world full of true crime documentaries and podcasts, it would be easy to think that today’s students have become desensitised to death: in the back of lectures, students listen to  _ Serial _ instead of their course material, and they watch documentaries like  _ The Keepers _ as they type up their essays. My own poison is David Fincher’s  _ Mindhunter _ , which Clint and I would watch with dinner.

But if anything, this phenomenon has simply created more awareness. These students are not blind to the idea of serial killers and are not too scared to use the term; when crime finds its way into their lives, they demand answers, and often more proactively. Entire boards full of Internet detectives are already on the cases. Clint wasn’t the first person to publicly note the similarities. 

I had spoken to the lobby boy (about five feet two inches tall with dark hair and an outfit so oddly immaculate and colourful it seemed to come from a Wes Anderson movie) on my way in. He had heard about Barnes, but not about Lewis or van Dyne. He said he had assumed it was a serial murderer simply from the Barnes case. “Maybe I just assume the worst,” he had laughed. “It’s California, after all.” 

  
  


“You know she was a political science student?” Jane laughs. “But she was so determined to be my intern. I couldn’t say no.” We’re at her Berkeley house, near to the university; the noise of students milling about outside fills the house. She’s talking about Lewis, and showing me pictures of them together. Lewis is vibrant, happy, the star of each shot; there’s a sense that she’s going to walk through the front door any moment now. 

On account of my background in science, Dr. Jane Foster and I are already acquainted, having both spoken at the same TED conference in 2017. We were interviewed together for a media outlet promoting new discoveries in physics, and had a drink afterwards; we’ve been in semi-regular contact ever since. Almost all of my initial knowledge of the Lewis case came from her.

Jane is one of the loudest voices speaking out against police negligence in this case. She’s written articles for several newspapers from the New Yorker to the UK’s The Guardian discussing vulnerability as a woman and the culture of blame. As someone who’s suffered sexist abuse in the workplace previously, she isn’t afraid to speak up. Today, she’s a little more quietly thoughtful. I’m here to speak to her about Lewis as a person. 

“She would say what was on her mind,” Jane says. “It’s why I liked her: she didn’t seem afraid to point out if something was stupid, and she was really quick to find alternative solutions in problem solving. She was so bright. I was blown away.” 

Her boyfriend Thor, a local bartender, agrees. “I met her once,” he says. “She was very funny and very determined.” He’s a warm-hearted soul, a man with a rumble of a laugh and whose first instinct is to offer me a drink. His face falls the more he thinks about Lewis. “It doesn’t seem fair that anyone should be killed, but it seems like such a cruel injustice that it should’ve been her.”

I ask Jane if she has any thoughts about who the killer is. “A man,” she says, immediately. “I’m so sure it’s a man, preying on the vulnerability of these students.” 

“I still walk home with my keys in my hand, just in case. I don’t really feel safe in this city. If I’m out late at night now, I usually get Thor to walk me home.” 

I ask her if she thinks she’ll ever feel safe here again. She laughs. “I don’t mean to patronise,” she says, immediately, apologetically. “But no. I won’t. Not ever.” 

“I have a brother,” Thor says when he’s escorting me to the door. “He’s a student – not even in California, but every day I find myself more and more worried about him. I worry that he might not call, and I worry that something might happen and that I won’t be there. You can’t protect the people that you love; you can only be there for them, every moment that you can, but the thought that one day they might not be there anymore – it scares me.” 

  
  


Scott Lang is an engineering student here at Berkeley; he’s still barely out of police interrogation when I meet him at the apartment he used to share with his girlfriend Hope van Dyne. His demeanour gives the impression of not having slept in a while, as does the fact he’s nursing what he tells me is his fifth cup of coffee of the day. His hands shake. It feels exploitative to be talking to him now, but he reached out to me when he heard about my visit. “It’s fine,” he says. “I want to talk.” 

He was born in Coral Gables, Florida, and had a particular talent in chemistry and physics: he found the classes in high school boring due to his natural aptitude, and turned his quick wit and problem-solving skills to burglary. After being released from a short prison sentence, he took up an internship with renowned scientist Hank Pym, who had been impressed by Scott’s quick thinking and abilities. Pym and his daughter Hope, seeing Scott’s potential and renewed vigour now that he was putting his efforts into something productive and challenging, managed to secure him a place in an engineering degree. Hope herself was studying physics at Berkeley, and soon enough, they began going out. 

Scott talks about her with a refreshing reverence. “I had no idea what she saw in me,” he says with a smile. “But I’m glad she liked me back. I mean, she was just so cool and smart. She was so ready to help with running Pym’s business and she was on track to graduate with flying colours.” His face falls. “She had her graduation outfit picked out and everything. It’s in the wardrobe. I don’t know what I’m going to do, now that she…” 

“It’s just not fair, you know?” he continues. “It’s not fair for anybody to die. But Hope, and that intern, and the guy at Stanford – they all had  _ everything _ ahead of them. I wanna work twice as hard now, you know, for her. To make her proud.” 

There’s a sadness to him that’s palpable in the room, exerting a heavy toll. I feel the need to ask him if he has support: he says he has friends, and that Hank Pym, despite being in grief, has saliently funded some counselling for Scott. He tells me that he doesn’t know if he can go back to university; he may have to redo a year, or drop out entirely. 

These are the lives left behind by the actions of this killer – a culprit who the police seem absent in hunting for. Scott doesn’t seem to care who did it: he’s struggling to hold himself together. But he, and Hank Pym, deserve to know who did it. They deserve to know who shattered their lives. 

  
  


Steve Rogers and I meet one more time, on my last day in Berkeley. He’s emailed me a dossier of photographs of Barnes, and asks that I please use one in the article; he wants Bucky to be a person, not just a name. He also attaches some video, and watching it in my hotel room I was struck by the reminder of the humanity we had lost. I had called up Clint, who was at the local PD. 

“I know it’s hard,” he’d said. “For you this hits close to home. But this is why you’re here. You’re giving a voice to the people affected by this tragedy and the people who were killed. That’s more than I can usually say.” Clint, a crime reporter, is often limited to dry facts; he’ll use the same released photograph of the victim that every other outlet uses. This is why he came with me: we want to see these victims as the three dimensional humans they were, to see the lives that have been cut short. 

Steve is particularly keen to co-operate in this regard. “He’s already just become this cardboard cut-out, this ‘dead trans boy’, this figurehead for trans pain,” he says, “but I want people to remember him as  _ Bucky _ . The kid from Brooklyn who kept me straight and made me laugh my whole life, with a wicked sense of humour and no time for any of my bullshit. I love him and I miss him and I want him to be remembered as the man that he was.” He speaks through battle-hardened tears: Steve has suffered attacks from both alt-right media outlets and aggressive online commentators, many of whom stoop so low as to insult Barnes. I presented a short documentary for the Daily Bugle where I spoke to some of those who perpetrated hate speech against a murdered student; most of those that I spoke to weren’t aware that I was LGBT+, and none could look me in the eye after they found out. Steve tells me he watched the documentary the day we met and was struck by it. 

“I was the kind of guy to always respond to those comments and get in fights,” he says. “Bucky had to teach me to calm down. I wanted to fight for him, but the truth is, he could always fight for himself. I just always wanted to protect him.”

Steve is quiet when he speaks again. “I couldn’t protect him then, when he needed me.” 

When he has regained composure, we go through his photographs together, creating notes for each image: where, when, if there was any context. We create a portrait of Bucky, a three-dimensional image in these moments caught in time like flies in amber. Barnes may be gone, but Steve is determined that he doesn’t disappear from public memory: “Bucky would’ve wanted to stand for something,” he says. I posit that he stands for the humanity of crime victims, the human aspect of what is lost. 

[A series of captioned images of James Buchanan Barnes and friends including Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff. Some are candid: Barnes sitting on the floor beneath a Christmas tree opening a present; a sneaky photograph of him graduating high school; dozing with Steve on somebody’s couch. Others are deliberate: selfies, portraits, a posed image of Barnes recreating the scene in the yard from  _ The Breakfast Club _ , his graduation cape billowing.] 

“I love him,” Steve says, “and I miss him.” 

  
  


On the night of our last day in California, I ask Clint a question: “what would you have done if it had been me, twenty years ago?” 

He looks up from his laptop. He doesn’t need to think about his answer. “I’d probably still be hunting your killer,” he says. 


End file.
